Laptop recommendations

[geographyrocks]

I realize that there is a metric ton of these questions on here, so I apologize in advance. I wouldn't start a new thread, but I have a pretty specific question.

My department does not have computers in the grad student offices. I can easily go to a computer lab and maybe that's what I should do...but I'll probably work on stuff at home as well. I will probably need arcgis and matlab on my laptop which both require >2.2 ghz of processing power. So, here are my questions:

If your discipline is program heavy, do you have those programs on your laptop or do you use the computer labs?

What laptops do you recommend? I know MacBook Air is the favorite, but I think I might be more comfortable staying with a PC.

I've been looking at laptops for about an hour now, and I think I'm starting to go crazy. My last laptop purchase was a disaster. I can barely type on the damn thing without it freezing.

Also, my dept is both PC and Mac friendly.

Price range: I'd like to stay under a grand...willing to go $1200. I want something that will make it all 4 years.

[GeoDUDE!]

I would go with an Asus Zenbook configuration: Thats the PC brand I would buy if I were not buying mac hardware. A lot of people like lenovo, but as someone who has been a computer enthusiast for ~20 years, it seems that lenovo gets a lot of cache from the early 2000s IBM thinkpads. Not that lenovo is a bad brand, its just not "superior" like they used to be.

 

If i were buying a lenovo, It would be the thinkpad. Matlab doesn't require that much processing power unless you traditionally program in it: avoid loops, thats what matlab is for. It has been a while since I used arc GIS (2010), but my feeling is you want 8 gb of ram. I think you are wrong on the reccomended specs of Arc GIS and matlab: while maybe older processors need 2.2ghz or higher to run them, 1 ghz != 1ghz from generation to generation.  In newer generation processors, 1 cycle does a lot more processing than 1 cycle previously. Lower clock speed, hyperthreading and turbo boost all help in that regaurd, and ultra book with an i5 should be fine.

 

I think you would be better off spending the entire 1200 dollar budget. While its certainly possible to buy a 1 year old model with nice specs. If you could stretch to 1500 dollars, I think you would get a spectacular laptop :http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX301LA-XH72T-Quad-HD-Display-Touchscreen/dp/B00EPGHFQC/ref=pd_cp_pc_0 

 

but if you cant, im sure there are offerings from dell, lenovo and HP all which are very similar. Really, people like to say brand matters from all the top OEMs, and they dont until you get into the high end. Just as many people hate one company form 1 bad experience, love it from a good experience. 

 

 

 

Also a thing I forgot to mention: You want the laptop to be prestine for the 3rd and 4th years of your program because thats when you will be doing the majority of the writing, god forbid something happens to your laptop then. So if you can hold out for a year or two, that might be the best option. 

Edited July 14, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[geographyrocks]

I don't even pretend to know anything about computers.  I got the Ghz straight from this:  2.2 GHz minimum ; Hyper-threading (HHT) or Multi-core recommended (http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/system-requirements/10.2/index.html#) and that might not even mean what I think it means.  lol 

 

I would LOVE to wait to buy a laptop, but my current lappy has some internal memory problem.  I did the google thing and found out that it has to be sent back to the company to be fixed and since this was only a $300 computer, repairs just aren't worth it.  I don't even bother using this damn thing to surf the net half the time since it performs so crappy.  I wish there was a store that was called This is the Perfect Computer for YOU! and it had one computer and it WOULD be perfect.  *sigh*

[GeoDUDE!]

So its a 2.2 Ghz minimum on a single core, but they recommend multicore or hyper threading. the 2.2ghz doesnt matter that much: all i5 and i7 processors will turbo boost beyond that. an i7 will give you hyper threading, which may nor may not be important depending on the size of your Raster and Shape files: your memory at 8gb I think is much more important. 

 

It seems in your case an i5 with 8gb is what you should be looking for, and if you want to spend a little more, go for the i7. 

Edited July 14, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[geographyrocks]

OOOOHHH...That makes so much more sense now.  Thanks! 

[spectastic]

my only complaint with my zenbook is that its keyboard and trackpad isn't very good. mine was a refurb, and when I got it, it had a trackpad issue where it would click on a random line while I'm typing and replace a chunk of text with what I'm currently typing. It went away after I downloaded a newer driver. might not be an issue with a newer model. the other thing is my zenbook only has 2 usb slots, a 2.0 and 3.0. I use the 2.0 for the wireless mouse, so one usb 3.0 leaves much to be desired, especially with a 128 gb ssd capacity. other than that, no complaints. but the keyboard thing would be a biggie for me if I were to program with it. they don't feel crisp and smooth like other keyboards (eg. MacBook)

 

also, just get what you need with the processor. bigger processors only waste energy. I'm sure they have energy saving modes, but why spend more for processing power you don't need?

Edited July 14, 2014 by spectastic

[GeoDUDE!]

my only complaint with my zenbook is that its keyboard and trackpad isn't very good. mine was a refurb, and when I got it, it had a trackpad issue where it would click on a random line while I'm typing and replace a chunk of text with what I'm currently typing. It went away after I downloaded a newer driver. might not be an issue with a newer model. the other thing is my zenbook only has 2 usb slots, a 2.0 and 3.0. I use the 2.0 for the wireless mouse, so one usb 3.0 leaves much to be desired, especially with a 128 gb ssd capacity. other than that, no complaints. but the keyboard thing would be a biggie for me if I were to program with it. they don't feel crisp and smooth like other keyboards (eg. MacBook)

 

also, just get what you need with the processor. bigger processors only waste energy. I'm sure they have energy saving modes, but why spend more for processing power you don't need?

 

The biggest difference between the i5 and the i7 is hyperthreading, which makes the i7 thermally more efficient as well as faster. Im using an i7 from 2011, sandy bridge model, and it still isn't a bottleneck for anything I do on it (numerical modeling aside, which requires a super computer anyway).  It actually does not consume that much more power, what tends to consume more power are the discrete vs integrated graphics.  

 

a Haswell (current gen) i7 gets very similar battery life to a haswell i5 while being much faster through hyperthreading (more virtual cores). 

Edited July 14, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[ahlatsiawa]

HP offers some great value for the price in its Envy line. I recently got this one for myself and it cost me $1220. It's only available in the Middle East market though. You could check out the following in the United States:
 

1) HP - ENVY Leap Motion SE 15.6" Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Natural Silver

2) HP - ENVY TouchSmart 17.3" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 12GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Natural Silver

3) HP - Refurbished - 15.6" ENVY TouchSmart Notebook - 16 GB Memory - 1 TB Hard Drive

 

I don't know where you stand on touch-screen laptops but I will tell you that I was quite skeptical at first when I got mine (it was a compromise since the one I really wanted wasn't available) but I've grown rather fond of it. Windows 8 works great on touchscreens.

Edited July 14, 2014 by ahlatsiawa

[spectastic]

out of curiosity, what was your previous laptop?

 

_{was it a dell??}

[geographyrocks]

My previous laptop was a dell. It was a pos. My current pos is a compaq. I make bad computing decisions!

[spectastic]

my company computer is a dell

 

_{I want to toss it into the firebox in our power boilers and convince my boss that it was stolen}

[Lifesaver]

I have to say, I love my Mac. I always swore I'd never get one, but after going through three computers in only a few years, I decided to make the leap. Even my ChemE techy brother who hates Apple and all they stand for recently bought a Macbook Air because he "got a really sweet deal on it" and seems to really like it. My same one Macbook has lasted me almost six years. It still works fine, it is just beginning to lag and the battery life has gone to crap (<2 hrs unplugged). I could absolutely salvage it by buying a new battery and swapping it out myself, and perhaps having someone technologically inclined clean it up and maybe fix the lag, but I'll be honest and say I'll probably just be buying a new one in a few weeks simply because it's 5 lbs heavier than the new Macbook Air. Diva, I know. But it got me through half of undergrad, through my first masters, it has been flung into airport xray bins hundreds of times, dropped out of my SUV twice, etc. It owes me nothing at this point. With a student ID (or proof that you're a student) you can get a pretty sweet discount at the Apple store or Apple online. So yeah, I'll be buying a 13'' Macbook Air as soon as I get closer to financial aid refund disbursement.

[starofdawn]

I have to say, I love my Mac. I always swore I'd never get one, but after going through three computers in only a few years, I decided to make the leap. Even my ChemE techy brother who hates Apple and all they stand for recently bought a Macbook Air because he "got a really sweet deal on it" and seems to really like it. My same one Macbook has lasted me almost six years. It still works fine, it is just beginning to lag and the battery life has gone to crap (<2 hrs unplugged). I could absolutely salvage it by buying a new battery and swapping it out myself, and perhaps having someone technologically inclined clean it up and maybe fix the lag, but I'll be honest and say I'll probably just be buying a new one in a few weeks simply because it's 5 lbs heavier than the new Macbook Air. Diva, I know. But it got me through half of undergrad, through my first masters, it has been flung into airport xray bins hundreds of times, dropped out of my SUV twice, etc. It owes me nothing at this point. With a student ID (or proof that you're a student) you can get a pretty sweet discount at the Apple store or Apple online. So yeah, I'll be buying a 13'' Macbook Air as soon as I get closer to financial aid refund disbursement.

 

My boyfriend and I bought our laptops around the same time. I purchased a SONY VAIO, and he purchased a Macbook Pro. They were around the same price... the SONY was awesome and a great computer. But today, my SONY is dead, and his Macbook Pro still works fine, except for the slight lag and low battery life as you mentioned (and it's been 5 years). This has convinced me to shell out the extra cash for a Mac, although I'm worried about installing programs for my major that only work on PCs.

[ahlatsiawa]

starofdawn - AFAIK Macs can run Windows.

[spectastic]

anybody know why the macs last so long? battery is understandable. i guess build quality too. but why else would a computer retain its speed over so man years

[Between Fields]

starofdawn - AFAIK Macs can run Windows.

 

Yeah, they're just standard Intel computers under the hood. There is no longer a hardware difference between Mac and PC, just a software one. It used to be that the hardware architecture was also different, so you really couldn't put Windows on a Mac, but now it's really easy to have a dual boot solution.

[GeoDUDE!]

anybody know why the macs last so long? battery is understandable. i guess build quality too. but why else would a computer retain its speed over so man years

 

The reason why people think macbook pros are over priced is because they don't understand the computer manufacturing business: just because some parts deliver similar performance does not make them equal. 

 

The biggest reason a computer slows down is the degradation of the thermal efficiency of the bins on the motherboard and and memory.  Thats why replacing the memory on your laptop can speed your computer: if the laptop runs cooler it will also run faster. 

 

When manufacturing hardware it is build for certain tolerances: Macbook pros use industry grade quality control and tolerances which is a much more expensive manufacturing process that what goes into non business class computers.

 

Another reason Macs might last longer, is that, they are much less susceptible to foreign data types while browsing the web. If your windows computer is slow, perhaps reformat it? A lot of the speed comes from accessing things from the hard drive, a full mechanical hard drive is much slower than an empty one. 

 

So its not completely true that there isn't a huge difference between hardware on macs and pcs: just because they are build on the same architecture does not mean the engineering is the same. And that engineering is key to why mac products cost so much.

 

This isn't some "buy a mac" post. I think the upper end of ASUS and some of the other BUSINESS class laptops can be just as good as a macbook if windows is your thing. Using bootcamp on a macbook isnt really a good solution: you have to restart your computer every time and if you use windows a lot it becomes annoying. Its only meant for the occasional use of windows: I wouldn't use windows as my primary OS on a macbook, ther really is no reason for that.  

[GeoDUDE!]

I'm not sure if people are still looking, but for those who want to buy a windows machine, woot has some really good deals: http://www.woot.com/plus/business-class-pcs-1?ref=cnt_wp_1